Dozens of public and private buildings in Athens to open doors to public
The third installment of the Open House Athens initiative, aimed at acquainting the general public with different styles of architecture to be found around the Greek capital, will this year include tours of dozens of public and private buildings normally closed to the public.
Among the highlights of this year’s event, which runs from April 15-17, will be tours of Athens City Hall, the General State Archives, the National Library, the recently renovated Piraeus Municipal Theater and the Athens Concert Hall, where visitors will be able to see the backstage area of the Alexandra Trianti opera venue as well as an impressive organ with 6,000 pipes which was donated to the cultural institution by the German government.
Among other gems that will be showcased is a professional space hosting Higgs, a nongovernmental organization, on Victor Hugo Street near Metaxourgio metro station in downtown Athens. The building is a three-storey neoclassical edifice built as a private residence in 1905 and designed by Panos Karathanasopoulos, architect of the Aktaion Hotel in Faliro, with ornate wrought-iron railings, marble ornamentation and impressive plaster work on the ceilings.
From the modern samples on the roster, Uptown Residences, a residential complex in the northern Athenian suburb of Maroussi, is seen as one of the event’s other highlights.
Nominated in 2013 for the European Union’s Mies van der Rohe Award, the complex was designed by BLP Architects.
